Journal of the Phoenix
by SSidle
Summary: We must pick ourselves up out of the ashes and carry on...Post book 7, disregarding the epilogue.
1. 15 Days

In light of everything that has happened I have decided to begin a journal of my thoughts and our lives after the war. I have entitled this the Journal of the Phoenix because, like the beautiful phoenix, we are picking ourselves up from the ashes of our world and carrying on.

I hope that someday this may be read in times of great trials and adversity to give the reader the comfort of knowing what we have been through and that we were able to overcome it despite everything.

~Hermione J. Granger

15 days post the final battle:

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.  
**Buddha**

With all of the funerals over and the most dangerous of the wreckage cleaned up, we're left to our thoughts….and at this point I'm not sure that's at all a good thing. The pain is all still too fresh and the wounds are just so raw. It makes me sick when I let myself think about just how much we lost, all the vastly important lives, not to mention the shear amount of physical damage that's left to be cleaned and restored. It just seems like our entire world has been torn down to its foundations…Though maybe this is a good thing. There would just be too many painful memories for everyone if everything was as it had been before…the void left by our lost loved ones would seem that much greater in the places that they'd once been with us.

Now that we've said our goodbyes and started to come to terms with the overwhelming sadness…We must look to the future and set out to rebuild our world and the lives that our missing friends gave so much to ensure we were able to have.

- A/N: This is my first story in a very long time, so reviews are very helpful. As always I own nothing.

Hugs and love to reviewers! -SSidle-


	2. 30 Days

30 days post:

When one admits nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.

**Bertrand Russell**

What do we do with ourselves now that the one focus of our lives for the past 7 years is gone? How do you move past fear that you've grown up knowing when it is no longer needed? Can friendships formed in times of horror and pain still last when peace has finally returned?

I can't help thinking about all this as the reconstruction begins and the strange sense of peace has begun to come over all of us. We still feel the loss of those who are gone, but I think we're all realizing that they would want us to be able to move on and function without them, to carry on with what they are not able to, to live the lives they cannot for them. But for some of us these unsettling questions are whispered in the back of our consciousness and dampen our newly healing spirits.

I'm afraid of losing the only family I have left. It will be years before it would be sensible to bring my parents back, and by then I don't feel as though I would be able to destroy the light-hearted life they now live. To bring them back and force them to remember the fear and panic of before…So I have made the decision to watch my parents from a distance and let them go on without me. I am an adult now and I am capable of building my own life without having to continually change theirs. But…that means the only family I have now is the one that I've built since I entered into the magical world….the Weasleys, my fellow Griffindors, Luna, and of course my two best friends, Harry and Ron.

But as I look back at how we all came together I can't help but realize that it was out of fear and necessity that we came together in the first place…and now that the threat and dread is gone from our lives, can the bonds we've formed still last? Or will weaknesses in the links we've made show through and break us apart. I don't know if I could live through losing them…I so very much hope that my fears are for nothing? I wish Harry would talk to me about what he's going through, as he has before…I can see he's hurting so much and there's nothing I can do…I've done what I can to help Ron, but he has his family to turn to, and they need each other now more than they ever have before….Leaving it to the two of us to rely on one another for help and comfort…just so long as we bring ourselves to admit we need it.

A/N: I know the chapters are short, but they are journal entries and I will be trying to update as often as I can.

Hugs and love to reviewers! -SSidle-


	3. 60 Days

60 days post:

Life does not cease to be funny when people die

any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.  
**George Bernard Shaw**

Everyone knows that there are moments in your life that can make you question everything you know…but no one ever thinks about the moments that can affirm those things that we never dared to believe could be.

It always seems to be the littlest things that can make you believe that everything might be ok after all. It's been 2 months since the final battle, since we lost more than we may have ever thought was possible. And many, myself included, wondered if things could ever be alright again. But sometimes things happen that can bring about a smile to everyone's face, even in the hardest of times.

Today I joined Harry and the Weasleys to begin cleaning out and repairing the Burrow finally. As can be expected, we left Fred's things for last. But it was when we finally managed to bring ourselves to turn our attention to those painful reminders that we saw that those we lost are never truly gone so long as we allow ourselves to remember them…and Fred managed to remind us of this no matter how hard we were trying to forget. We had just opened the last of the trunks buried in his old closet when the room was very suddenly brightly alight with fireworks…Somehow he had managed to booby-trap his most personal childhood items with the wild firework creations he and George had made together. We then had to spend the next few hours trying to get them to stop and cleaning up the mess. But we found ourselves laughing the entire time. It was exactly what we needed. Even George cracked a smile when Molly tried to vanish them only to make them that much worse.

It may seem like such an insignificant thing, but to us and the family it was everything. We were forced to remember that Fred would be horrified to know that we had all remained to solemn for so long…He had thrived on laughter with his twin and we forgot that. We were reminded that there could be no better way to remember our dear friend than to laugh and enjoy our lives for ourselves and for him. It was a beautiful thing to see some of the light come back into George's eyes for the first time in far too long.

Once we'd managed to clean up and calm down our laughter and tears, we all had supper at the kitchen table as we'd had so many times before. We shared stories of our friends and laughed and cried some more…and felt a little bit of our hearts heal.

A/N: Please let me know what you think and if I should continue this.

Hugs and love to reviewers! -SSidle-


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